New Price Points – Good Idea or Bad Idea
By Richard Nurse
What do you do when you get a case of writer’s block? When it hit me recently, I turned to my other love, statistical analysis. God, did I just say that. Statistics was the course I put off until the bitter end when I was going to college. It scared the hell out of me. I have a very logic based mind, just perfect for mathematics, but I also have two other traits that work against my logic base. The first is that I do not like formulas, especially formulas with unknowns. The second is that I am able to visualize what I am trying to calculate. I struggled with Algebra, Geometry, and Trig. I found my niche though when I finally succumbed to the fact since Latin was a dead language, my learning it was not going to bring it back to life. I met with my guidance counselor and ended my frustration with Latin, and substituted it with a course in Business Mathematics.
It was the first really intelligent decision I made, with regards to taking my future into my own hands. The course allowed me to use my logical mind, in conjunction with my ability to visualize and learn how to project trends and future outcomes. Which is exactly what I began to do to keep my mind engaged. I decided to build an accurate database of my published works.
I decided to create a metadata file for my books. Knowing there are four main classifications within the genre of Fiction: Novel, Novella, Novelette, and Short Story. My first question, what determined which classification a book falls into. A simple question, which had and equally simple answer, found with ease through a Google Search. Word Count was the logical solution. Beginning with the smallest first; the Short Story (Up to 7,500 words) followed by the Novelette (From 7,500 to 17,500 words), then the popular Novella (17,500 to 39,999 words) then the largest of all the Novel (40,000 words or and up).
Now that I had a guide to determine which classification each of my works fit, it was time to decided exactly what data I wanted in my Metadata File. Since I publish under both my own name and pen names, I decided to make the first column be the Author, which gives me a sortable database. I followed the author name with the title of the book, followed by the name of a series if the book is part of a series. Next came Word Count, and the number of pages for both Digital and Paperback editions, followed by prices for both digital and paperback editions. The final grouping of columns contains the books various ASIN, ISBN’s and ISBN-13’s for each publisher or retailer.
I was surprised to find the relative balance between the number of books in each classification once the lists were completed. Novels = 9, Novellas = 8, Novelettes = 7, Short Story = 6. I have one other classification of books, as I also write and publish poetry, and within that classification, I have works classified as Collections (3), Single Poems (3), and Stories in Verse (2).
As I constructed the database, I became aware of a trend that began to disturb me. I seemed to have a very large number of my books, regardless of size priced the same. It caused me to sit back and re-evaluate myself and my belief in the quality of the works that I have to be published. Why should I be selling a 25,000 or so Novella, for the same price as a 6,000-word short story? My answer to that question was that I shouldn’t be doing that. Which of course brought the next question to the forefront, “How does one determine what to price an e-book for?
I played with some different ideas on pricing, even to the extent of basing the price on the number of words. It did not work, as the minimum price of $0.99 blocks the use of a sliding scale or formula. If you sell a 7500-word short story for $0.99, the price per word is $ 0.000132. Now; if that short story is only 5500 words in length, the cost per word at $0.99 (The lowest price allowable) is $0.00018. Now use those figure for an average novel of 50,000 words and see what the price should be: If you use the rate based on a 7500-word short story the 50,000 novel should be priced at $6.60 but if you base the price on the shorter short story the novel should be priced at $ 9.00.
I would love to be able to sell my books for $9.00 each, but reality is that the average price for a novel, by an indie author is $2.99 or less. The $0.99 minimum is the issue today, and also is why there are so many books that are simply given away by the authors. I would love to see some lower price points for short stories and single works of poetry.
I would be in favor of free becoming a “promotional only” price industry wide. Since all e-books are moved purely as data, with no physical production costs, other than transmission costs, Let’s see if Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, Apple, etc. really want to support the indie authors. I am suggesting that two lower prices be established for short stories and single or short works of poetry. Why not a $0.69 and a $0.39 price. Each would have to have a maximum number of words as should the $0.99 price as far as I am concerned.
Indie authors and poets, put the same amount of effort into writing a piece as the top ranked authors with major publishers behind them. The difference is in the promotional funds behind the books. I am unaware of any research as to the financial status of the average indie author, but I bet that most write because they love to, and while they would like to make some money at it, it is not the driving force, behind any books that they publish.
©April 5, 2016
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